Altitude: 431 m a.s.l.
Area: 9 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 20 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 759 - in 2017: 665
Patron Saint Day: June 29th - San Paolo
Information: Municipality phone 0183 54041
The village extends over a natural terrace in view of the Upper Maro valley.
Fief of the Counts of Ventimiglia, it passed to the Lascaris and finally, with Carlo Emanuele I, it became part of the Savoy dominions.
However, a branch of the Ventimiglias remained important: the Ferrero De Gubernatis, who obtained the power to govern Aurigo as feudal Lords of the Savoys.
Visit of the town
The original inhabited area extended upwards, near the church of Sant'Andrea, an ancient medieval church attributable to the XII century, rebuilt in the Baroque period. Later the inhabitants moved lower down to defend themselves from the Saracen raids and to be under the protection of the lord and of the castle.
Continuing on the Provincial Road up to the first intersection on the left you’ll find the war memorial and the sign indicating Guardiabella; you are on the right path to reach, among the olive trees, the Sanctuary of San Paolo, which stands on a beautiful square made suggestive by the remains of ancient columns. The Sanctuary is among the very few examples of Renaissance architecture in western Liguria. The building was erected in the sixteenth century on a late-medieval structure of which the quadrangular apse remains, surmounted by the rare octagonal dome and two beautiful stone capitals – you’ll find the other two on the sides of the fountain.
On the left of the squat eighteenth-century square bell tower there is a coeval portico with seats supported by a stone column. The portal of 1602 embellishes the façade and is enclosed between two pilasters carved at the top with figures of angels and at the bottom with those of San Pietro and Sant'Andrea, at the top center there is the aedicule with a bas-relief of San Paolo with the book and below the date 1604, at the center of the round arch there is a guardian wizard.
On the façade there is a small window with a rough stone holy water font, from which you can admire the Baroque interior: behind the main altar, in a small temple with gold friezes, the polyptych of St. Paul with Saints Peter and John painted in 1567 by Giulio and Raffele De Rossi deserves particular attention. The black stone balustrades carry beautiful sculptures of 1604.
Continuing on the road to Casoni you’ll reach the Aurighi (lands exposed to the sun) area, where at 600 meters of altitude in 1242 stood the village; the small XI and XII centuries Romanesque church of Sant'Andrea still exists surrounded by vineyards in front of a magnificent panorama of the Valley. The building preserves the stone arch of the portal on the left side, and the apse whose base reveals the massive medieval square blocks, covered for the rest by plaster.
Original up to the bell is also the beautiful bell tower in well-shaped, regular, horizontal ashlars. On the west side has remained the arch of the door surmounted by that of a tall and narrow mullioned window, both now walled up, while towards the valley the loophole reveals the also military use of the structure. The bell tower was one of the sighting towers of the Castle of the Counts of Ventimiglia, the other one, La Colombera, is almost completely destroyed and on the ridge towards Poggialto.
The church of Sant'Andrea broke away from the matrix of Santi Nazario and Celso around 1424 and was the first parish of the area.
Returning to the town you’ll arrive to Piazza Castello, at the beginning of the main street of the town, and there on the left you can admire the beautiful portal of the palace of the Marquises Ferrero De Gubernatis of Ventimiglia with the carved coat of arms of the family. This palace also houses the frescoed chapel-room, the old kitchen and the ancient cellar with the black stone portal bearing the words UT EXELLAT INTUS, the door from which was gained access to the prisons. Features of the building are: the Doric column at the base of the staircase and the vaulted ceiling of the entrance as well as the entryway floor still made with the ancient pavement.
Under Piazza Castello there were the prisons, the fortress was in the current garden of the Marquises Ferrero De Gubernatis of Ventimiglia where the remains of the ancient manor are still visible. The palace was connected to the castle by a secret underground passage.
Entering the village from the central street, past on the left the door with a marble carved angel, you’ll find a lintel carved with the motif of "Jesus washing the feet of the Apostles”. Shortly after is a niche with an oil painting of St. Anthony of Padua. Continue and arrive to Piazza Concezione where the sixteenth-century municipal loggia opens up on the right and, further on, above the archivolt on the left, there is an affixed plaque carved with an angel's head.
You have now arrived to the churchyard of the Natività di Maria Vergine parish church, originally of the fifteenth century but then enlarged in the Baroque period by the famous architect G. F. Marvaldi and decorated internally with Baroque stuccoes. The side walls were demolished and the extension of the façade and apse reused as side walls of the new building, thus the plan became that of a Latin cross by walling the original entrance on the right side of the new building; the lower part of the bell tower is also original.
On the façade, enriched at the top by a marble statue of the Virgin and Child, the main door opens, well protected by two guardian wizards with folded arms carved in bas-relief in the medallions of the jambs; the protection is completed by the angel watching over the entrance from the center of the architrave. Inside, where is preserved an important organ, already admired by Perosi in 1911, there is on the right the marble stoup carved in 1671 by the master craftsman Benedetto Bruno, an object taken from the nearby oratory.
Entering in the chapel of the Bruna family on the right you can admire a splendid crucifix of 1576 with at the base the coat of arms of this family under which is affixed a carved stone cabinet for the Holy Oil of 1710. To the left there is the chapel of the Marquises Ferrero De Gubernatis of Ventimiglia.
On the central wall - of the Marquises by patrician entitlement - you can see the 1712 fresco depicting Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven with San Luca, San Giovanni and the Dominican San Vincenzo Ferreri (1337-1419) patron saint of this family and protector of the sick. In the center of the chapel is the fine baptismal font in white marble of 1587, and, above, the Marquises Ferrero coat of arms. On the right of the church is the oratory of San Giovanni Battista, seat of the homonymous male confraternity, and of the female confraternity of St. Catherine.
Inside the building there are statues and furnishings of the two confraternities. On the right is a black stone stoup supported by two 15th century capitals, carved in marble and stone respectively. Besides various aedicules positioned around the town, in the alleys there are numerous niches with saints and Madonnas.
Above the "Casoni" locality at 800 meters, the 1,218 meters high Guardiabella mountain dominates the Impero Valley, which has been the scene of fierce battles with both the Roman legions who defeated the Ligurians and the Napoleonic army. The above is confirmed by the toponymes of some places that took their names from the aforementioned battles:
"A Capitania": at the height of Guardiabella, a sighting and command zone.
"Sottu dell'Arma": weapons storage.
"Picchi driti" - "Picco ritto": zone of defense with barrage of large boulders.
Still in Guardiabella, at the bottom of a valley of lawns not exposed to the sun, in a circular structure with stone buttresses called "A Nevea", snow was collected and pressed. Transformed into ice, this snow was used to treat the wounds of soldiers and other diseases (often the path of the ice ended by train to the Genoese hospitals).
Returning to the Provincial Road on the right, after two and a half kilometers you’ll arrive to Poggialto, a hamlet of Aurigo.
Through Via San Bernardo you’ll reach the churchyard of the homonymous Baroque church, which preserves inside a medieval font with a black stone on a column, and the wooden statue of the Virgin of the Rosary surrounded by a beautiful wooden dossal by an anonymous artist dating between the sixteenth and seventeenth century (Alpi Marittime school) in chestnut, linden, poplar and walnut wood, carved, stuccoed and oil painted, recently restored.
In front of it, on the same street, there is a small carved wooden door, and a small aedicule further on.